A Better Tomorrow

by Sassy_Changeling

First Contact

“So, what’s our plan sir?” Frank asked, glancing between the ONI agent and his lieutenant. The two officers had spent several minutes talking away from the squad, letting them work on securing the area around them. Freuski’s body had carefully been put back in his pod after it was pulled onto its back, and sealed shut. It was the least they could do in such a short time.

“We’re going to start heading that way,” the agent started, pointing a hand towards the east, “and continue moving until the locals decide to come down and figure out if we’re a threat or not.” The hand pointing went upwards towards the cloud that he noted the flying creatures settled behind, presumably to watch them.

“So we’re really not on Earth.” Chauchat muttered, taking off his helmet and rubbing the back of his head. “What’s protocol about first contact again?” The agent just snorted and rolled his eyes behind his helmet.

“Doesn’t matter, we’re not going to kill them unless I figure out if they’re working with the Covenant. Just don’t be aggressive.” He explained, before motioning towards Allan. “We’ll take turns carrying him on a stretcher, with one forward and two rear.” Zed nodded and began unpacking the stretcher in her pack, despite Allan’s weak protest.

“I can walk, sir!” He tried getting out, but grunted as his leg moved. “Honest.”

“No, you can’t. You’re lucky your leg didn’t shatter on impact.” Drumms responded, putting a hand on Allan’s shoulder. “We’ll be following the agent’s lead on this.” He paused and looked at him, tilting his head.

“Well, since we’re not exactly doing a simple grab OP anymore, I suppose I should introduce myself.” He stepped forward. “You all are under the command of agent Mare.” They snorted as he shrugged. “Buck’s squad got assigned agent Dare. ONI went through a phase in giving agents animal code names, I’m one of those lucky ones. If we turn out to be stuck here for more than a few weeks I’ll entertain the idea of letting you guys get to know more about me.” He didn’t need their visors to be transparent to see the eye rolls at his sarcastic tone.

“Fair enough. Hopefully we won’t need to, spook man.” Frank smirked and got off his rock. “So, who’s helping Allan first?”

“Chauchat and Zed.” They nodded as Allan was moved onto the stretcher, grabbing the ends of it once he was in place. “Let’s see how long it’ll take for them to get off their high horses and consider helping us.” The squad snorted as they gathered their gear and set off.

---

“Okay, I’m pretty sure that one knows we’re here.” Fleetfoot said, ducking back behind the cloud after the off colored one pointed up at them. While she had no clue what they were aside from looking like insectoid minotaurs, she figured the one that had dark green colors was either a different gender or ranking compared to the all black and grey ones, or the one with a single blue stripe. Possibly the latter, since the others seemed to pay attention to it and the one with the stripe.

“Any clue on what we should do then?” Soarin asked, carefully poking his head over to watch them.

“Well, aside from reporting back?” Fleetfoot hummed and rubbed her chin, sighing softly. “Just continue observing.”

“I think we should report back.” Soarin frowned and peered closer. “One’s injured. We could get them some help from the base.” She jolted a bit and looked down as well, watching as they eased one onto a stretcher of some sort. “Want to keep an eye on them while I go back?”

“Might be a good idea.” She accepted, nodding as she nudged him with a sly smirk. “Besides, we both know I have better eyes for the task.” He just snorted and took off, flying eastward. She shook her head and resumed watching, settling in for a long observation.

---

“So, that’s what we’re dealing with? Fliers that can… sit on clouds? I thought they were just behind it.” Mare mused, rubbing the bottom of his helmet idly as he watched one of the creatures fly in the same direction as they were heading. “At least I picked the right direction.”

“And its not a Drone.” Drumms sighed softly in relief.

“Yanm’e. But yes, they’re not Covenant. ONI has no information on creatures of that appearance aside from equines back home.” Mare cradled his M319, with his M7S hanging off his hip. Freuski’s weapons were strapped to his back, and the ammunition placed around his body. “Sapient or otherwise, so this’ll be a fun experience for all of us.”

“Playing around in the badlands and watching the locals. I almost wish we were on that goddamn carrier.” Frank mumbled, shaking his head. “Think we should call the other one down?”

“It might be a good idea. I wouldn’t be shocked if that one turned down the offer, though.” Zed added, shifting her grip to keep her hands from aching too much. While sharing the weight of Allan’s load with Chauchat, the ODST was still pretty heavy with all of his equipment on.

“Worth a shot, I suppose. We’ve had worse first contacts.” Mare chuckled and waved up at the flyer, motioning for it to come down, before continuing on their course. If it wanted to meet them, it’d come down in time.

---

“Horseapples…” Fleetfoot frowned, watching as the green and black one waved up at her, then made a beckoning motion. Or what she assumed was, due to the way it was waving back towards itself. Should I go down there? I have no clue what they are, or if they eat ponies. She thought to herself, resting her head against the cloud. Spitfire is going to murder me if I screw this up.

With a grimace, she got up off of the cloud and glided on down to the ground, landing and kicking up some dust a short jog from the group. Ears and tail flicking in nervousness, she approached the still moving group, clearing her throat of more than just dust.

"Uh... Hello there!" She called out after a moment's hesitation. Oh I'm such an idiot! Who simply says hello in this situation?! She screamed internally. Not really to her surprise though, the two in front, holding some kind of weird objects she noted, looked at each other in possible confusion before shrugging.

The two creatures seemed to silently communicate to each other for a moment, Telepathy, perhaps?, before turning to the group and motioning them to bring up the wounded one. Fleetfoot could only grimace at the sight of an obvious leg break, though glancing over its body revealed that they were wearing armor. Okay, so I'm dealing with soldiers, maybe? Which... makes those objects some sort of weapon.

The idea of bringing armed alien soldiers to their outpost didn't exactly fill Fleetfoot with confidence, but she wasn't going to just sit by and ignore a wounded being. Taking a deep breath, she pointed at the group and then the ground, before motioning to herself and then towards the outpost.

---

"What do you think its trying to say?" Drumms asked, glancing between the horse thing and Mare. The ONI agent hummed for a moment, before squatting down and motioning to it with his hand. Nervously, it took a few steps forward, only to relax as he began drawing crude figures in the dirt.

"Let's see if they're friendly. Or understand pictures." Mare muttered, drawing a crude representation of Allan and the stretcher, then a equine helping him, before pointing at the blue creature. It studied the drawings for a moment before nodding, once again pointing at them and then the ground before taking off. "It wants us to stay put, probably going to go get help."

"Probably going to get help?" Zed questioned, her eyebrow raising behind her helmet. "Or going to get a bunch of Brutes to smash us into paste." Mare just shook his head and stood up, adjusting his pack.

"If these things are working with the Covenant, it wouldn't have come down here Zed. Put Allan down, take a breather and eat a ration bar or something. Might as well see what they'll bring to bat." He glanced at the others. "Consider it an order. Rest up for a moment."

"At least he's not trying to get us killed to capture a grunt or something." Chauchat muttered to Allan, causing him to snort.

Author's Note:

I live

Comments

[Time Waster]

What in the..? Who woke up the necromancer again?

[r4d6]

It's alive! ALIVE!

[Kamata]

It lives, yay!
It's slightly odd how not-paranoid and unworried the ODSTs are after being at war for so long (Particularly since they were jumping into a combat zone), but I'm curious to see how it will go.

[pewpewpew]

you do live c:

[CommanderApplejack]

Well, tracking random stories in the hope they update paid off